


nothing safe is worth the drive

by benwvatt



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Dates, Pining, overarching theme of Flowers for Algernon, showing up at the love of your life's apartment :)))
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2020-11-22 09:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20872124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benwvatt/pseuds/benwvatt
Summary: No strings attached, and certainly none of that ‘romantic-stylez’ mess and ‘maybe, yes, a little’ heartbreak that keeps replaying in her mind.First dates are never easy. First dates when you're in love with your best friend? Harder still.





	1. one

Amy Santiago gets over Teddy Wells like this.

(It’s easier than she thought.)

Dark hair, darker eyes, and wearing a pine-green sweater decorated by a horizontal trail of trees, she’s laughing at a throwaway joke that Gina just said before catching a man’s eye. He has a kind smile, she notices. Without pause, she returns his sentiment, gaze connecting to his with invisible thread.

The lights in the bar move a few degrees back and forth as the doors swing open. There’s a faint creak in the air as it happens. Amy bites her lip and glances to the barstool where he, her future paramour, sits. She takes a slow breath, turning back to her friend. “D’you think he’s cute?”

Gina scoffs, reaching for the leather jacket slung over the back of her seat. “Wouldn’t leave you alone with him if he weren’t.” She’s nothing if not observant, whispering a ‘see ya’, ever casual, in Amy’s ear.

“Emergency call in fifteen minutes?” Amy responds, words sharp. There’s a nervous crease between her eyebrows. She turns to her watch for a moment, then glimpses the thread fraying on the right sleeve of her turtleneck. Of all the evenings to come loose, it’d picked tonight.

“You know it.” Gina’s speech is far smoother, and her line of vision flies over her shoulder to the guy at the bar. She’s the kind of woman who never leaves a room without looking back. You ever know when you’ve forgotten a napkin covered in ten ink-stained digits and a blurry but classic ‘call me.’

The strap of Gina’s purse, a rusty Eiffel tower charm clipped on, jingles as she walks out. The keyring is already wrapped inside her fist. Amy drums her fingers on her lap, watching her friend exit with a whoosh of the door. Now or never. With crooked steps, she leaves the beloved corner booth only large enough for two and approaches the barstool.

“Uh, hi.” Amy gives a small wave. 

“Hi, there. Can I buy you a drink?” the man asks, turning to her with a glass in hand. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Course. I’ll have a beer.” Amy grins. It’s been a while since she’s picked up a guy at a bar, and the unfamiliarity is welcome. This might just be the palate cleanser she’s been needing ever since she and Teddy broke up.

Replacement-Teddy (apparently three-drink-Amy’s fond of nicknames) looks a year or two younger than her. He glances down to Amy’s Christmas sweater for a brief second, and then his eyes return to meet hers. His expressions are so subtle, they’re hardly there.

Amy notices a faded dimple on the stranger’s cheek while she’s trying to stop staring at him. One voice in her head says it’s rude, and another says she should fixate on that chiseled jaw until the image cements itself in her mind.

“So what do you do?” the guy casually says, breaking the silence with one or two blows of his words. He traces his finger along the jagged edge of the bottlecap on his beer. Amy smiles, watching the way he leans into her frame.

“Uh, I’m a cop.” She manages to couple the clipped words with a half-confident air (Flirting for Dummies, copyright 2008, wasn’t just restricted to kissing lessons. Give her _some_ credit.)

“Got a license to kill?”

“Not yet,” Amy teases, cool. Her lipstick’s smeared, but she hasn’t a clue.

Some star aligns above them just then. The evening courses along, and the shadow of a good time makes its presence known at the barstools.

Guy-at-the-bar’s name is Glenn, and he’s a pediatrician who regales her with stories of his twenty-month stint in the Peace Corps. He knows how to transform the flimsy napkins at Shaw’s into origami boats, and he can anagram with the best of them. During a drawn-out conversation about books and movies, she learns he even likes Flowers For Algernon.

Seriously, does her guardian angel live down the street from the precinct or something?

Glenn mentions his childhood with nonchalance, like it’s an old science fair project forgotten in the basement. His eyes light up when Amy mentions Typing Camp. He tells jokes like he can’t wait to hear the punch line, holding back youthful laughs as he speaks. In fact, Amy’s three quarters of the way through her beer before she gives her watch another quick glance.

He’s easy on the eyes. And Amy’s just a drunk girl with inhibitions lowered like guardrails on a risky night, headlights cut and the road wide and open.

This might be the beginning of something new, it occurs to her.

Meeting Glenn is like diving into a cold pool on a sweltering day. No strings attached, and certainly none of that _‘romantic-stylez’_ mess and _‘maybe, yes, a little’_ heartbreak that keeps replaying in her mind. She’s leaving it behind. Amy tips her head back, downing the beer, and she forgets a little more about handsome detectives with badges slung around their necks.

She calls out for another drink, one hand braced along the wood to balance out her turbulence. No rules in breakable heaven, Amy repeats to herself. The realization breaks through the perfumed fog clouding her memories, and it feels like liquid sun.

She smirks, the obvious cheer making her head spin, and gives Glenn her phone number.

* * *

Glenn Mahoney doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve this girl.

Amy’s exciting and attractive and good at crosswords; she knows enough Percy Jackson trivia to give a TED Talk about the significance of blue desserts; she says she wants to be the youngest captain in NYPD history, and there’s not a doubt in his mind that she’ll make it.

Amy’s the dream.

And she’s in love with someone else.

It hurts to tear himself away from this mirage of the _perfect_ woman. She could even be the one, but he knows better. Glenn takes his rose-colored glasses off, blinks once or twice, and comes back to reality.

“And then I pointed to Jake 一 you see, he’s got this bad habit of not cleaning out his desk, which is why the missing files were in there 一 hey! I never told you about Algernon, did I? He’s this mouse that lives in Jake’s desk, which was annoying at first since Jake and I sit right across from each other…”

Glenn nods.

“But, anyways, Jake named him after Flowers for Algernon, which I’d recommended to him a few years ago-”

Glenn takes another sip of his drink. “You know, that’s actually a really good book-” he tries to interject.

“I know, Jake really liked it, too! Well, he watched the movie, but I really don’t think we as a society should shame people who prefer the movie to the book because it still expands the reach of the story…”

He supposes Amy’s dose of denial is simply too strong to wear off anytime soon. “Yeah, I agree.” Glenn gives a small laugh.

Under the table, he shoots his sister a quick and coded text 一 a police siren emoji for an emergency bail-me-out phone call (the irony isn’t lost on him) 一 and he looks to his watch for the fifth or sixth time tonight.

Seriously, Glenn doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve meeting Amy. He’s not ‘the one’, he’s just ‘the one who makes you realize who you _ought_ to be with.’

(And that role, he thinks with a roll of his eyes, is even better.)

* * *

Amy’s on cloud nine.

She grins with the last of her energy, and tosses back a shot with a flick of her wrist. Glenn likes sudoku puzzles and dark chocolate just like she does. Better yet, he likes _her._ He’s dreamy and kind and well-read, all adjectives at the top of her list.

Glenn could be everything.

Glenn could take her far, far away from the overrated melodrama of liking someone who’s (A) convinced that Die Hard is the best cop movie ever made and (B) dating Sophia, with her law degree and winged eyeliner and lyrical laugh.

(Amy’s not bitter. Far from it.)

No use moping over lost chances, Amy tells herself.

(Okay, admittedly, Jake’s stories are much funnier than Glenn’s.)

Somewhere in her muddled, late-night haze, she thinks about the way Jake always ribs her about typing camp in that lovable, I-can’t-believe-you kind of way, instead of just nodding along. But she can’t go back, or force what isn’t hers to begin with.

It’s her own fault.

Stuck on a fork in the road, caught between what she could have and what she truly wants, Amy doesn’t even notice when Glenn excuses himself for an emergency phone call. She only has the time to nod along to his pleas. A few seconds later, Glenn’s mumbling something about flat tires and sisters, steps clicking upon the floorboards on his way out of Shaw’s. His coat’s tucked securely under his arm. The bell above the door gives a ring, and it’s only then that Amy realizes she’s been left alone at the bar.

Left alone at the bar _again._

She looks to three of Glenn’s origami napkin boats sailing along the edge of the counter, picking up the largest of them and fiddling with its impeccably-placed umbrella. It’s a leftover from a bachelor party and not really origami at all, but still. It’ll pass the time and keep the lulls at bay. The clock seems to tick slower. Something dawns on Amy as she twirls a toothpick between her fingers, profound and important, soft and yet sullen.

She’ll remember it the next morning.

Two feet away, tucked into the secret pocket of her purse, Amy’s phone lights up with message after message.

**[jake, 10:57 PM]**  
hey i need you im coming over is that okay

**[jake, 10:58 PM]**  
pls ignore the tear marks all over the aberdeen file ive had a rough night

**[jake, 10:58 PM]**  
srry


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He _needs_ her. Jake doesn’t like to ask for help from anyone, and it must’ve taken a lot to push him to this edge.

Amy’s eyes are glassy as they catch the moon’s glow. It’s a curious night for a curious girl to be out alone, and so she takes a few stilted steps out of the bar and into the street. Amy’s lucky she doesn’t fall. The pointed heels of her shoes drag on the uneven sheet of concrete blanketing her path, but it’s not enough to topple her. She takes a breath, watches the air turn misty-white before her. Her shoulders hang heavily, and that’s not simply because of the expensive leather (okay, _pleather_) coat weighing her down.

Distant sirens call as Amy crumples an origami motorboat in her hand (_stupid_ Glenn) and lets it drop to the ground. This evening’s another lonesome one, she thinks. Lately, that’s been the trend, and Amy’d hoped in vain that tonight could break the curse. If only.

She buries her hands in her pockets, waiting for the familiar headlights of a taxicab to take her home. There’s a miniature trail of pastel-colored paper behind her, a few ships and flowery umbrellas mangled between well-worn pebbles.

Amy hails a taxi with chipped paint and a broken taillight within the next few minutes. She even steals it out from under the nose of a few drunk bridesmaids donned in all pink, but it’s too late for satisfaction. Heaven knows how safe the vehicle is, anyways, what with the rickety whine it gives as she settles in. Vision blurred, Amy watches trails of magenta fade away into the distance. So, heavy-voiced, Amy says her address and rests in the backseat.

She doesn’t spot Jake’s three text messages until halfway through the car ride, the screen so bright it makes her eyes burn.

**[jake, 10:57 PM]**  
hey i need you im coming over is that okay

**[jake, 10:58 PM]**  
pls ignore the tear marks all over the aberdeen file ive had a rough night

**[jake, 10:58 PM]**  
srry

She gives a sigh, unable to remember the last time she saw Jake cry. (There was that instance last month when Cagney and Lacey scratched up his Die Hard CD, but he got over it. Charging Terry for a new copy certainly helped him move on.)

Amy scans the messages once again, and her shoulders drop. He _needs_ her. Jake doesn’t like to ask for help from anyone, and it must’ve taken a lot to push him to this edge.

Softly, Amy comes to her senses and types out a reply. Never mind the fact that he’s the one person she’d been trying to forget, never mind that familiar spark in Jake’s eyes when he cracks a joke ーhe’s still her favorite person. Amy couldn’t say no to a visit from Jake even if she wanted to.

**[ames, 11:21 PM]**  
didnt see this til now, be home soon. on my way. you ok?

Her phone clicks off. The rest of the ride home, Amy clutches it in her hand and smiles faintly, thinking about a certain someone’s worn flannels and crooked glasses. Jake’s only willing to wear those wireframes at home, bashful of his appearance around everyone else. But Amy thinks about the biscottis they’ve split between laughs, the books she read to him before he swiped her copy of Harry Potter from her fingers 一 and Jake’s always let her see him in those glasses.

She doesn’t know how to feel about that notion, and the car continues to drift in silence.

* * *

When she reaches her apartment and takes the elevator up, Amy finds her best friend pacing outside her door. Jake’s murmuring somethings under his breath, head bowed, and he’s wearing a suit and tie. His shirtsleeves are rolled up unevenly; Amy’s eyes widen in response to the rumpled fashion in which Jake’s arrived. She’s always had a bit of a thing for him in business clothes.

A little part of Amy’s addled mind wants to grab him by that powder-stained tie and kiss him until the brokenness in his expression heals.

But she only ignores the notion. All too often, midnight brings out the wildest, most foolish thoughts she can gather. _He has a girlfriend,_ Amy reminds herself with a grit of her teeth, stepping forward to confront Jake. Her purse, slung around her body, swings in the air as she moves.

“Um, hi?” Amy’s hair is beginning to fall in curtains around her face, and she grins slightly as she tucks it back in a symmetrical motion..

Jake’s head jerks up a few inches, and there’s a jolt of uneasiness in the movement before he returns to normal. “Amy. Hey. Sorry to bother you-”

“No, you’re fine,” Amy murmurs, stepping forward with her keys in hand. She sets her eyes on the wrinkles pressed into his dress shirt, and feels a touch self-conscious as she looks down at her sweater. The fabric has fuzzy blotches where it's pilling near her sleeves. Is she out of place, too comfortable next to him?

Amy clears her throat, continues. “I, um, was kind of on a date, but it didn’t work out anyways, and I really _did_ want company tonight-”

Joy pulls at Jake’s lips just then, feather-soft. “Really?”

_The date didn’t work out didn’t work out didn’t work out,_ and it plays in his head like a malfunctioning record.

“Yeah.” Amy twirls a loose strand of hair around her finger, looking down as she scuffs the hallway carpet with the toe of her shoe. “You’re my best friend. Who else would I want to see?”

With one arm, Amy gestures to the door of her apartment, still decorated with a wreath left over from Christmas.

“Are you okay?” her voice carries from outside to inside, gentler now.

Jake chuckles as he walks. That’s a loaded question. “Ever broken up with someone during a drug arrest?”

“No way. You and Sophia?” Amy turns from the coat rack to face the kitchen, where Jake’s finding his seating on her granite counter. (They’ve had this discussion many times together. Sitting in unconventional places is a satisfying way to live.)

Jake gives a soft nod. “Yeah, uh, I might’ve followed her to a work party that I wasn’t invited to. That’s when everything started to go wrong. Sophia’s boss was snorting cocaine in the bathroom, and I couldn’t _not_ arrest him-”

“Jake!” she gives false protest and swats him, hiding the hint of a grin all the while. Amy shivers then, and goosebumps rise on the nape of her neck.

“Aw, Ames, you must be cold,” Jake says, shrugging his off his suit jacket without a second thought. He offers it to her, crumpled in his hand. That’s what happens when your best friend’s the type of girl to bring a blanket to a Mets game in mid-July; you learn to present your love as cordiality.

He’s sure Amy would look beautiful, anyhow, draped in bolts of black fabric that pool at her waist. The last time she wore his jacket, he couldn’t stop staring.

_That right there’s called an ulterior motive,_ Jake reminds himself guiltily. His act of so-called kindness had been laced with romantic sentiment right from the start.

Amy smiles, moving to lean against the kitchen counter. “No, I really couldn’t-”

Jake throws Amy a knowing look, wanting to nudge her shoulder but unsure of whether that’d be too forward. “Would you just take it?”

“Well, I mean, if you insist...”

She feigns annoyance, but Jake notices how quickly she takes the item of clothing and puts it on. _Finally did something right tonight._

Oh, he wants Amy like this. He wants her when it strikes midnight, when the streetlamps line the sidewalk outside her apartment, and, if he’s lucky, he’ll be invited in. He wants to sit on her kitchen counter and wax lyrical about the beauty of having a barista who knows exactly how much peppermint syrup to put into your holiday latte (@wendy at Starbucks!!!)

He wants her mundanities most of all. Oh, he just might crave them.

Jake knows all-dressed-up Amy well enough already, but he loves her most when her hair’s been thrown into a messy bun, when her strawberry-pink glasses are perched on the edge of her nose, when she finds a favorite pen rolling around in the back of her desk drawer and texts him about it at 3:10 AM.

Jake loves Amy most in these rare and quiet moments. She lets down her guard, and he’s one of the few people she continues to let in. It’s hard to cling onto these little things 一 to _her,_ actually, because he knows she’s out of his league. Amy’ll probably find Mr. Perfect Credit Score soon, and she’ll become Mrs. Perfect Credit Score-hyphen-Santiago (because _feminism,_) and Jake won’t be anything to her after that.

He’ll be a lonely footnote in the back of the book while Amy continues writing the story.

But Jake can settle for this midnight, at least. He’ll savor every minute of her company that he can, because it’s as much as he’ll ever get.

“Hey, you okay?” Amy interjects just then, placing a hand over his in an act of concern. “You’re kind of staring into the distance.”

_This is not the same thing as hand-holding!!!! Don’t get carried away!!!_

That’s what he tells himself, anyhow. It’s anybody’s guess if he’ll listen or not.

Jake swallows his feelings, shaking his head to clear away the thoughts. (It’s the physical version of closing 23 open tabs in a row.) “Yeah, fine. I’m just tired. Turns out it’s really hard to arrest a drug addict when he’s your girlfriend’s boss. And, um, I dunno if I loved Sophia or if I just loved the idea of her, which is really compli-”

Jake looks down at his dress shirt and rolls his eyes. “Has there been cocaine on my tie this whole time?”

Amy nods slowly.

“And you didn’t tell me?!”

“Would you have preferred the assumption that you had a potent, illegal narcotic casually sprinkled onto your clothing?” Amy raises an eyebrow.

“Yes! _Always_ presume I accidentally got cocaine on my tie!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!! comments and kudos are deeply appreciated


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Jake Peralta’s sitting on Amy’s couch and giving her a small glimpse into everything she wants: staying in for the night, fighting over the remote control before settling on a mutual favorite television show, laughing at the same jokes._
> 
> _It’s merely too good to be true._

“I didn’t mean to end up there!” he protests.

“What were you trying to do, measure how tall you were?”

Jake’s telling that old story about his second-ever arrest, when he got lost and ended up as one of the suspects in the police lineup, and Amy throws her head back with relentless joy. His face is flush; 2008 rookie cop stories always render him like this. Bumbling. Gawky. Misdirected. _Younger._

Amy finds it endearing, but she’ll never tell him.

She’s laughing in her kitchen against all odds, her back pressed up against a half-stale box of muffins and an oversized tin of protein powder (it turns out Terry’s really bad at Secret Santa.) Amy can hardly speak, words punctuated with breathlessness.

“I’m really bad with directions!” Jake blurts.

She only giggles harder.

“That’s why I always have to use the GPS in my car, even if it interrupts the Wicked soundtrack right in the middle of Defying Gravity!”

Her grin grows wider. “I’m sorry for making fun of you, but the jokes just keep _coming_ to me-”

“I didn’t come here to be criticized.” Jake crosses his arms across his chest. “Or should I bring up that time you got the interim commissioner sent to the hospital because you ordered the wrong sandwiches for McGintley’s lunch meeting?”

“Number one, they never proved that was me.” Her voice turns braggish, the way it’d been a few months ago when she’d won Jimmy Jab. Jake still remembers it fondly. “And, number two, how was I supposed to know he had allergies?”

“Gina gave you all the instructions, Ames.” Jake rolls his eyes. “Who messes up sandwich orders? They’re the best food on the planet, next to room-temperature pizza at Sal’s.”

“What kind of lunch order is that? She texted me emojis of a mountain, a ukulele, a surfboard, and a croissant! With the caption _‘food for the commish’_ after it!”

Jake scoffs. “Simple. Croissant is Gina-speak for any sort of sandwich, since, apparently, being the Paris of people extends to breakfast foods.”

Amy remains unperturbed.

“And then mountain-ukulele-surfboard! So basic,” his voice goes on, growing in confidence as it stumbles past the first sentence. “First letter of every word spells out M-U-S, and you know Gina thinks the ukulele is just an ugly Hawaiian guitar. Therefore, _no_ mustard.”

“That doesn’t make sense at all.”

Jake smirks, leaning against the wall. “Does to me. Of course, you wouldn’t crack the code unless you were, I dunno, the best detective at the Nine-”

Amy elbows him before he can finish the sentence.

* * *

The sun falls into shadows as the city courses into the evening. Amy’s television flickers briefly before she skips to an old episode of Friends. She finds herself nostalgic for coffeehouses and laugh tracks, so she’ll do anything to bring back the unique emotion of childhood. This night is timeless, caught in the clutches of real and unreal. Outside, the traffic continues as always. And Amy, used to this _will-we-won’t-we_ by now, swallows a confession as she looks over to her best friend.

He’s so easy to want.

Jake Peralta’s sitting on her couch 一 the yellow, flowered one he’d helped her pick out at IKEA, even going through the carefully-constructed list of quality concerns and four-star recommendations with her.

The sofa he’d helped her move around the apartment when she couldn’t decide if it looked better diagonal or straight. He’d been nice enough not to complain about the torturous act of lifting it so it wouldn’t scratch Amy’s precious hardwood floors (and, furthermore, even _nicer_ to console her when the floorboards got scuffed anyways.)

The same couch he’d decided to crash nights on before Amy’d rolled her eyes and, somewhat softly, invited him to sleep next to her in bed for the night. She remembers lending Jake her Lilith Fair t-shirt and smelling his cologne on her pillowcase the next night. He’d been so grateful about sleeping over, shyly complimenting her flannel pajamas and insisting on making breakfast the next morning.

Somehow, somewhere, the same man who delighted on mayo-nut spoonsies learned how to make blueberry pancakes, and it’d been surprising. Relieving, even, to rely on him like that.

Jake Peralta’s sitting on Amy’s couch and giving her a small glimpse into everything she wants: staying in for the night, fighting over the remote control before settling on a mutual favorite television show, laughing at the same jokes.

It’s merely too good to be true.

Amy thinks about Sophia, always armed with knife-sharp wit, and then about all the girls Jake’s dated in the past. _Perfect-eyeliner-on-the-first-try_ kind of girls. _Figured-it-out-on-my-own, didn’t-need-anyone, never-did_ girls. _Charge-ahead, figure-out-the-consequences-later_ girls.

They’re always confident. They know where they’re going. Jake doesn’t go for sentimental best friends with flashcards and checkbooks stored in their purses, no matter how hard Amy wishes he would.

Her shoulders fall, tired of the tension. She won’t be the one he spends his Friday nights with.

“You okay there? You’ve been quiet for a while,” Jake says then, and Amy shudders, shaken out of her thoughts.

She sighs. “Yeah, all good. Just zoned out for a bit.”

“Alright,” Jake murmurs, edging an inch closer to her on the sofa. “Just let me know if you need anything, okay? I’m here for you.”

Oh, how she hopes that’ll always be the case.

* * *

_“Dad, I just can’t marry him. I’m sorry. I just don’t love him,”_ Rachel Green says on the television, wearing a rain-spattered wedding gown and a wire tiara in her hair. _“Well, it matters to me!”_ she protests a moment later, cueing a laugh track from the audience.

Jake takes a lurch forward, shoulders tilting, and presses pause on the remote. He blinks once or twice, coming back to reality. His hair’s in a state of disarray, and Amy suppresses the furtive thought that he’s actually cuter like this. Drowsy. Gentle. Unsure of himself.

“See that?” Jake asks, pointing a finger nowhere in particular. “She didn’t love him!” he continues, voice a little louder. He sounds a little younger.

Amy nods, watching the gears turn in Jake’s head. “Yeah, I know it’s rough, honey.” The words are quiet in the air.

She’ll only call him ‘honey’ when he’s sad and sleep-drunk, because he probably won’t remember it the next morning. 

“Rachel had this whole idea of Barry built up in her head, based on what everyone _else_ wanted her to do, and she just … she thought he was the whole world, and then one day she walked away and found everything she ever wanted,” Jake blurts, sitting with his thoughts. There are a lot of thoughts to sit with, in his defense. His posture is stiff, unmoving, and he lets the deluge of words carry on. “So how d’ya ever know if you’ve found the one? Why couldn’t you just walk away and find new opportunities? And why should you ever believe that someone’s gonna stay when they could just … when they could just leave you? You think everything’s fine until it’s not.”

The sigh he gives hollows him out. The bags beneath his eyes do, too.

“Because it’s not. It’s not fine.” Jake grabs at his tie, more wrinkled by the minute, trying to undo it until it pangs him, straining against the nape of his neck. There are still salt-and-pepper spots of cocaine on the tie. Amy has the fleeting idea to make a _‘cocaina!’_ joke, but now’s not the time for light-heartedness. 

She turns to him, unsure of what to say. So she trails a fragile touch along his dress shirt, grey-white in the shadow of the light, and she shifts to disentangle his tie with soft brushes of the fabric. “Can I?”

He gives her the ghost of a smile. “Yeah. Thank you.”

Amy continues with her pitiful attempt at care, pulling softly at the cloth. She can feel his breath, warm against her skin, and ignores the sight of the freckles dappled along his neck. Right now’s a pretty inconvenient time to be filled with an all-consuming adoration for a boy with a broken heart, and yet-

Amy’s gone with the inconvenient option.

“I’m so sorry for you, Jake. I know you really liked her.” She keeps her eyes fixed on the knot in his tie, not daring to look up at him with her hands so delicate, so close to his chest. The black linen comes apart easily, and she glances up at him then. Their eyes flicker together, then apart.

Jake grins, looks down. “It’s okay. I think I was more in love with the idea of her, and the idea of dating someone, than who she actually was. You know, she really wasn’t the one for me. I knew it from the start.”

Amy looks at him, feelings on the verge of spilling over. “I wonder who is, then.”

“Yeah. I wonder too,” he replies, giving her everything in a glance before he shifts away. “Thanks again, Ames.”

And she tries not to blush, really, but with the nickname and the closeness and the faint traces of alcohol still in her system, it’s an unfortunate time to follow her baser instincts.

She knows. She’s known for too long.

“Anytime, Jake.”

* * *

Can you die from sexual tension? Can your body just seize up and stop functioning because a pretty girl offered to take off your tie and proceeded to drag her fingertips along your chest and collarbone and neck, so gentle it physically hurts?

It’s an odd question, and probably a Google search away from being denied (WebMD, always reliable. Duh.)

_She just got back from a bad date. And you were literally being broken up with three hours ago,_ Jake tells himself, trying in vain to shut down the curiosities about his and Amy’s love lives. Will they ever intersect? Align?

Jake rubs at his eyes, mirages running through the two-lane road in his head. He thinks about that giggly thing three-drink Amy sometimes does, tucking hair behind both ears at the same time, whenever he breaks into bad renditions of Taylor Swift at the bar. His mind meanders to settle on his sixth sense, how he can tell whenever Amy’s sad because her mascara will smear a little as her eyes mist. And, soon, she’ll progress into mopey Amy, and then always-cold-but-forever-denying-it Amy. That one’s his favorite, what with the pouty look she’ll give him until he forks over the leather jacket hanging on the back of his chair.

Jake pulls at the strings of faint memories 一 Amy pretending to be unaffected by his terrible puns about every bar open on 16th avenue, but laughing nonetheless.

Amy writing him a birthday card and a get-well-soon card and even a Hanukkah card, like a _nerd._ (Don’t even get him started on the Arbor Day e-card she’d used to reduce her carbon footprint.)

Amy remembering how he took his coffee from day 1: five creams, six sugars. She’d shaken her head with that ‘you’re an idiot’ grin subtle and familiar on her face, then called her dentist and scheduled a long-overdue checkup for a friend.

For a friend, Jake reminds himself with stubborn tone.

Because he was a friend, _just_ a friend, and it was useless to give away your love with no chance of reciprocation.

Jake turns to look at Amy, then the coffee table, tired of the silence and wanting cheap laughter to replace the noise in his brain. Somehow, she knows to click ‘play’ again on the television.

Amy raises an eyebrow. “Happy? I even got the subtitles in German because they make you laugh.”

(She remembered.)

And it stings, to be so loved by her.

Another question for Google: how do you fall out of love with someone who refuses to give you a reason to do so? Someone who calls you ‘honey’ when you’re tired, and ‘pineapples’ when she wants to embarrass you in midmorning briefings? She’ll FaceTime you whenever shivers and thunderstorms wrack your mind with worry. She’ll wrap her arms around your shoulders and let you spin her around, gleeful, whenever you crack an impossible case.

Jake knows the answer already, though. It’ll be a long way down, letting go of the _romantic-stylez_ mess he’s made and the dying hope of _maybe, yes, a little._

* * *

The charm of comedy heals them both from slightly broken hearts. Fiction always has a way of inspiring belief in the ordinary by taking advantage of the extraordinary.

The night is quiet, frost tapping at the windows and leaving traces of ice wherever it goes. As time ticks past two o’clock, Jake nearly falls asleep on Amy’s yellow couch as Netflix queues up the next episode of Friends. She turns the television off with hazy motions. Her hair’s messy, falling out of its ponytail in wispy, dark strands, and she asks him to stay over softly. Amy’s fearing rejection with each word that pours out.

But Jake nods, eager and easy and alight with joy, a common emotion among his many. Like he could ever say no to an offer like that, a morning blue and golden spent with her.

Amy puts her hands in her pockets before shrugging off the stiff fabric of her borrowed suit jacket, smiling as she finds candy hidden within the lining. “You keep sour straws in here?”

“In case of emergencies,” Jake murmurs, smooth as he unbuttons his crisp button-down.

“Remind me again,” she replies, coy, “what kind of emergency requires candy with 25 grams of sugar per serving?”

He shrugs. “Can’t have my last meal be a cold meatball sub from the cart outside the precinct.”

“But you love meatball subs!”

“Ah, but I love sour straws _more.”_

Jake’s endearing, the way he lets cheer paint his cheeks pink. He’s wearing a Nakatomi Plaza t-shirt in her living room and his hair is tousled boyishly and his heart is good and he has a really nice face 一 she briefly wonders what it’d be like to pull him close and call him hers, when- 

“Hey, sorry, by the way, that I never asked how your date went,” he says. “You said it didn’t work out, right?”

Amy nods. “I think it’s for the best. I met him at Shaw’s and we flirted for a bit, but he didn’t seem that interested in me, I guess. Left with an emergency call.”

Jake frowns and rubs her shoulder. “You’re way too good for him, Ames.”

“He said he was in the Peace Corps," she adds.

“So fake.”

“I think he said he liked Flowers for Algernon? But only the book.”

“C’mon, the movie was totally better.”

_“Thank_ you!” Amy interjects, high-fiving him without a second thought. “Finally, someone with some sense.”

And even though she tries to hide it, there’s a quiet storm brewing in her heart, thoughts of handsome detectives with badges slung around their necks ever present.

He’s all too easy to want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! kudos and comments are lovely :)))


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